DA Set To Drop Charges Against DSK

For those of you who predicted this, or at least urged caution and skepticism, take a bow.

The Post quotes a source said to be "at the center of the investigation:"

"Her credibility is so bad now, we know we cannot sustain a case with her," the source said, referring to the Guinean hotel maid...

"She is not to be believed in anything that comes out of her mouth -- which is a shame, because now we may never know what happened in that hotel room," said the source, who is at the center of the investigation and would speak only on the condition of anonymity.

"Did [Strauss-Kahn] use force? Was there actually a crime? I don't think we'll ever know."

There is still the question of how she came to have a ligament in her shoulder sprained. That suggests violence of some kind.

DSK's lawyers quickly spin a reply: He's not a rapist, he's a whore-monger and woman-beater:

Meanwhile, defense sources described a different scenario, in which DSK admittedly engaged with the maid in a consensual, sex-for-money exchange in his Sofitel suite, with no force involved -- and she turned against him only when he stiffed her.

It just does not appear any case can be founded successfully upon her word.

According to officials familiar with the situation, the maid never called her supervisor after the alleged incident but resumed cleaning a nearby room she had started earlier. She then returned to clean Mr. Strauss-Kahn's room, they said, and ran into her supervisor when she went to get fresh sheets.

Late last week, prosecutors received a partial transcript of a tape-recorded conversation she'd had with the man incarcerated in a federal immigration detention center, law-enforcement officials say. The man had been arrested while trying to sell marijuana to undercover officers, one of the officials familiar with the investigation said.

During the call, the man asked her if she was OK. The woman said she stood to make a lot of money from the attack because Mr. Strauss-Kahn was wealthy. Prosecutors need to further investigate the recorded call, which has not yet been fully transcribed, one law enforcement official said.

Authorities also are looking into transactions involving tens of thousands of dollars in deposits to an account in the woman's name made by men in different states, the official said.

And thank you! to the cobloggers, of course, DrewM and Dave in Texas and Maet and Andy and all the Legion of Idiots, and to dri, and fritzworth, and RDBrewer, and ArthurK.

Sometimes you just really, really need to get away from the computer and partisan grinding and the news and of course The One Who Is Prophesized To Destroy America.

Thanks for everyone who pitched in to keep the site from going dark.

posted by Ace at 11:50 AM

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